Aftermath
by 1alucard1
Summary: SPOILER WARNING Season/Series 3 Finale Post 3x24. The moment Fox robbed from us, Chloe's reaction to finally learning the truth.


"It's all true", Chloe said, shock evident in her voice.

"Detective?"

At first, he thought that she was distressed about him killing Pierce, but then he realized that her gaze never left his face. A cold shiver ran down his back, as he slowly lifted his right hand to his face. _Please_ , he thought fervently, _not that. Don't let it be that. Not now. Not when things are finally-_ His fingertips grazed over burnt skin, confirming what he already knew but hadn't let himself believe. _No, no, no, no. Please._

Chloe just stood there, frozen, staring at him. He looked back, afraid to make a move. Afraid that she was terrified, and any move from him might be enough to scare her away, never to return.

He spent millenia that weren't as long as those moments he spend standing there, waiting for Chloe to do something. He kept himself busy by forcefully pushing down any glimmer of hope that threatened to spread. No, he _knew_ there was only one possible ending to this. He couldn't allow himself to hope for anything else.

Chloe came out of her stupor slowly, taking a step backwards, running her hand through her hair.

"It's all true", she repeated, barely more than a whisper. She approached him slowly, her face a turmoil of emotions, impossible for him to read. She stopped a couple of feet away from him, her knees suddenly giving out, going to a kneeling position on the floor. He instinctively reached out to support her as she went down, but stopped himself at the last moment. Surely, she didn't want him touching her right now. Or ever again.

"I'm going to sit down for a moment, okay?", she said, voice unsteady. She did just that, lowering her head, crossing her fingers behind her neck. Lucifer remained frozen in place where he was. After a moment, her head came back up again. She took another look at him, then looked straight ahead once more, her gaze unfocussed. She took a deep breath, then another.

"You know, I always thought that it was silly-" She paused, clearing her throat. Her voice was a lot steadier when she continued. "-I always thought it was silly that Lois Lane didn't figure out Clark's deal immediately. I mean she's an _investigative reporter_ , for God's sake. She figures stuff out for a living. And all he does to hide is wear glasses. I mean, c'mon, right? The truth kept staring her in the face _all the time_ and yet we're supposed to believe she didn't figure it out?"

She paused, looking at him, and Lucifer just stared at her, wondering if he'd broken her, if she'd lost her mind.

"But maybe it never was about the truth staring her in the face so much as about her being able to accept it in the first place. To even consider the possibility that it might be true. To _let_ herself believe." She chuckled. It sounded a tad hysterical to his ears. "Well, I certainly understand her a lot better now."

She took another deep breath, then stood up. Out of habit, he offered his hand to help her up, and she took it. He stared down at her hand on his arm. She hadn't recoiled from his touch, and that damnable hope that he wasn't allowing himself to feel, couldn't allow himself to feel, surged up again, stronger than ever. Chloe also looked down where their hands where on each other's arm, but didn't pull back.

She took a shaky breath, then looked up at his face again. He desperately tried to read her expression, but there were so many things happening there that it was quite impossible for him to even guess what she was thinking.

"I _am_ the devil", he said, voice breaking.

And she did the most amazing thing. The last thing he would ever have expected. She smiled. "Yeah. I heard you the first two hundred times."

He stared at her, fighting off the hope that threatened to take him under and drown him.

"I- you-" Chloe started, then stopped, at a loss for words.

Lucifer cringed, the pain in his wings, only a dull background noise until this point, suddenly surging up, even though they weren't visibly present on his back at the moment.

Chloe's expression changed to worry in an instant. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" The hand that wasn't on his arm came up to his chest, searching for injuries. There were holes in his dress shirt from the bullets, but no blood to be found.

His free hand went to his shoulder, reaching for a limb that currently wasn't there. He suddenly felt nauseous, his vision going blurry.

" _Lucifer_." And, finally, there was the fear in her voice he'd waited for all this time, the fear he'd dreaded more than anything else. He almost couldn't believe that it was fear _for_ him, concern for him, instead of her being afraid _of_ him.

It was his knees that gave out this time. Chloe steadied him as he went down. He screamed in agony as his wings pushed their way back into the world, apparently infused with a mind of their own.

"Lucifer", Chloe whispered. He realized that he must have closed his eyes at some point, and opened them again. He was lying on the floor with her sitting beside him, his head in her lap, his wings streched out on both sides of them. The pain was still there, but it was more of a dull humming now than the searing sensation it had been a moment ago.

"Hey", she said, and he felt her hand on his face, her thumb stroking softly over his cheek, and there was a strange feeling in his chest, like a massive weight lifting. She wasn't going to run. She wasn't going to scream. He finally allowed the hope to spread and it flooded all of his being. He allowed himself to think that maybe, _maybe_ , there was a chance that she would come to accept him, eventually. That maybe there still was a future for him that included Chloe.

"Hey", she said again, and he heard the concern in her voice, heard the empathy, the pain she was feeling at seeing him hurt, and his heart might have stopped beating for a moment. "What can I do? Tell me how to help you."

He looked around dazedly. "I don't know. They've never been hurt before." He tentatively lifted up the tip of his left wing and felt the pain intensify. He dropped his head back into Chloe's lap, grimacing.

Chloe was getting more and more distressed. "What should I do?"

He might be able to heal quicker if she were further away. _I'll be damned all over again_ , he thought fiercely, _if I tell her to leave now that she's decided to stay by my side, against all reason._

"Don't worry. They'll get better on their own." He looked at his bloody wings. "I think", he added.

Chloe made a noise somewhere between a sob and a chuckle. "You have wings. You're an _angel_."

Lucifer lifted up his index finger. " _Arch_ angel."

Chloe coughed out a laugh on the edge of hysteria. She looked up, taking in her surroundings for the first time.

"What _happened_ here?"

"I guess it would be fair to say, detective,-" He paused for effect, giving her a lopsided grin, feeling light-headed. "-that all hell broke loose."

She looked down at him again and he saw that she was crying, and smiling, at the same time. She stared at him, and he thought that there was a strange look of realization on her face.

"You're still you", she said, relief evident in her voice.

He furrowed his brow. "That makes no sense." He felt like the conversation was getting away from him. He was dizzy and distracted by the now constant ache in his wings.

Chloe sobbed once, then carefully lifted him up a little in order to embrace him, holding on tightly.

The movement jostled his wings a little, causing him further pain, but he couldn't have cared less. He returned the embrace, amazed that _she knew_ , she knew, and yet she was still here, by his side, in his arms. She truly was a miracle.


End file.
